And Microsoft’s converged operating system has become a little less converged.

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Microsoft has just released a couple of new Windows Insider builds for people on the fast ring, one for PC and one for mobile. The builds are surprisingly divergent.

For PC, the build is numbered 16176; it's another Redstone 3 build, though as with the first Redstone 3 build, it doesn't change a whole lot. It adds access to serial ports from the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which will help with remote device debugging. The build also fixes some minor bugs while introducing a new, less minor bug.

Specifically, if you use a Centennial application built using the Desktop Bridge—Microsoft's semi-virtualized technology for putting existing Win32 applications in the Windows Store—your system will crash. This will cause a Green Screen of Death—green, because a few builds back, Microsoft changed the screen color for Insider system crashes. At a glance, then, you can see the difference between a crashing machine on the stable Windows branch (as these remain blue) and a crashing machine on the developer branch.

That Microsoft is willing to put known system-crashing bugs into its main development branch and then ship that development branch to consumers (albeit consumers that have volunteered to test pre-releases) just underscores the importance of the company's guidance that nobody use the Insider builds for their daily driver PC. We continue to argue that this kind of thing undermines the value of the Insider program.

A few numbers can make a difference

For Mobile, the build is numbered 15204, and it is stamped as part of the "feature2" branch. This is something of an oddity. During the development of the Creators Update, the build numbers of Mobile and PC have remained largely the same, and their branch was named "rs2." Sometimes a build has gone out for one platform or the other (sometimes there's a PC bug that's irrelevant on Mobile, sometimes vice versa). But many of the builds have had the same number, denoting that they're built from the same version of the code.

But that now seems to have broken. The Creators Update for PC is build 15063, and that represents the final build of the Redstone 2 development branch. Subsequent builds of the Creators Update will update the patch version; at the time of writing, that's 138.

The Creators Update has not, however, shipped for the phone. It's due to arrive on April 25. Microsoft tells us that the 15204 mobile build is still a Creators Update build. This means that unlike the Anniversary Update, which was build 14393 for both PC and Mobile, the build numbers will be different for the Creators Update.

We expect that some time after the Creators Update ships for phones, some kind of realignment will occur. We've heard that there are Redstone 3 builds for mobile, but they're not ready for wide distribution just yet.

Update: Different people at Microsoft say that 15204 is in fact a post-Creators Update build, and that when the changes being made to the 16xxx branch have stabilized that the feature2 branch will go away, and PC and Mobile will once again be synchronized on redstone3. Creators Update for phones will be 15063, as it is for PCs.

The new Mobile build includes a new privacy settings screen that is shown after installation. This is the mobile counterpart to the new privacy settings seen in the desktop installation experience.

With this build, Microsoft is also confirming which phones will actually receive the final Creators Update. It's not a long list, and some beloved handsets such as the Lumia 1520 are omitted:

HP Elite x3

Microsoft Lumia 550

Microsoft Lumia 640/640XL

Microsoft Lumia 650

Microsoft Lumia 950/950 XL

Alcatel IDOL 4S

Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL

SoftBank 503LV

VAIO Phone Biz

MouseComputer MADOSMA Q601

Trinity NuAns NEO

This same set of phones will also continue to receive new Insider builds after the Creators Update ships.

The Lumia 1520 is 3 years old now. People get pissed when their phone loses support for WP, but only Apple with the iPhone beats that length of support.

Hopefully that puts things in perspective. This is a x86 vs ARM thing. Not Android (or Linux) vs Windows.Apple can do what it does because of full control of the hardware and limited amount of devices.But, in general, ARM chip vendors don't have the will to support their own hardware after it's in production.

The Lumia 1520 is 3 years old now. People get pissed when their phone loses support for WP, but only Apple with the iPhone beats that length of support.

But at the same time updates is one of the few things WP can be said to be doing super well at. It's not exactly like there's been oodles of phones for Lumia 1520 users to upgrade to either. The only real successors to it are the 950 XL which is a whole year newer and the HP Elite X3.

I was on the WP bandwagon early and have had three of their phones, starting with the WP7 model.

Once they upgraded to the Win10 platform, I ended up bailing. Consistent issues that went unresolved, a lot of changes I didn't think that were necessary killed the Win Mobile 10.

Some included:

- Outlook taking over all email regardless of ISP and just dumping everything into one MS branded mailbox

- When you clicked a tile, it would swipe right and show me the list of installed apps. This was a consistent issue across several builds. Several users pointed this out and it never got fixed before I threw in the towel

- They started taking away standard apps and putting them in other menu's. The "data usage" app suddenly got put in the settings menu. Now instead of one tap to get my data usage, it required three taps and a swipe.

- Live tiles that either didn't work or updated incredibly slowly

- The crashing, good lord the crashing. It started happening two or three times a day and got worse until I finally went back to WP8

- The total overhaul of the settings in the Win Mobile 10 platform. Before the settings were pretty intuitive and easy to get what you needed. After the Win 10 upgrade, it was nearly impossible to find where to make simple changes.

I'm really bummed about the whole thing. MS had a good thing going and then turned everything into a dumpster fire. First they bought, then closed down Nokia, then mismanaged the Win Mob. 10 platform, had lackluster handsets, long stretches between beta releases and just couldn't get their shit together.

I though the design was revolutionary (the first company NOT to copy Apple's app icon design) and would usher in a new era of companies exploring better UI's.

Guess I was wrong. Of course seeing Nokia come back with an Android based phone is looking really promising.

p.s. I went back to Android about 18 months ago when a OnePlus handset and haven't regretted it yet.

The Lumia 1520 is 3 years old now. People get pissed when their phone loses support for WP, but only Apple with the iPhone beats that length of support.

Not to be a jerk about it, but my Samsung S5 I use as a dev phone just got a security update a couple of days ago. So yeah Microsoft is worse here, but they gave up on the smart phone angle, so its not suprising. As a company they've never had a problem throwing their past endeavors and associated customers under the bus fairly quickly when they've decided that path wasn't the one to go down (remembering those Zune customers).

For what it's worth, after Windows Phone became relatively turnkey to root last autumn, I told my 925 it was an 830 and have been pleasantly surprised with its ability to keep obtaining and running upstream (slow ring) builds as they come, and am hoping it limps along to this year's iPhone. I don't blame Microsoft for taking it out of support a while ago, but I might be willing to tell it one more lie if the 830 is now out too...

I received the 15063.138 update for my Icon (Lumina 929) on the slow-ring yesterday. Which is the same as on all my PC's and tablet at this time (none in the Insiders Program).

Unfortunately, the Icon is no longer on the supported list. If MS would ever release a new phone I might upgrade.

I wonder if MS is holding back on hardware until they get the code to 64-bit? Releasing a top-of-the-line phone right now running a 32-bit OS likely will not be looked upon very favorably since it will be limited to 4 MB.

For my money, the Lumia 1520 was the best phone I ever owned. I had a Lumia 900 as well. I'm now back to Android. I wish they hadn't given up on it. My guess is that it was a loss leader and just not financially sound to continue, but damn, it was the best interface I have used on any phone. When the app support started to die, I knew I had to switch, but I still have fond memories of it. Fast, fluid, and easy to navigate.

We can still hope for a Windows Surface Phone, but even that seems more like a pipe dream than anything else.

For my money, the Lumia 1520 was the best phone I ever owned. I had a Lumia 900 as well. I'm now back to Android. I wish they hadn't given up on it. My guess is that it was a loss leader and just not financially sound to continue, but damn, it was the best interface I have used on any phone. When the app support started to die, I knew I had to switch, but I still have fond memories of it. Fast, fluid, and easy to navigate.

We can still hope for a Windows Surface Phone, but even that seems more like a pipe dream than anything else.

Which in-itself seems strange. A Surface Mini with an LTE chip would be a phone for all intents.

I still resent Microsoft for killing w10 update for Nokia 635. I figured it's a nice cheap phone for m y parents to work smoothly. And because they promised windows 10 update at the time, i figured this is it.

Well, a few years later it's still stuck at w8.1. No better than plethora of cheap android phones.

> Microsoft tells us that the 15204 mobile build is still a Creators Update build. This means that unlike the Anniversary Update, which was build 14393 for both PC and Mobile, the build numbers will be different for the Creators Update.

> Microsoft tells us that the 15204 mobile build is still a Creators Update build. This means that unlike the Anniversary Update, which was build 14393 for both PC and Mobile, the build numbers will be different for the Creators Update.

"We continue to argue that this kind of thing undermines the value of the Insider program."

The thought of sending preview builds of a product to a client and asking them to risk considerable revenue for the sake of advancement sends shivers down my spine. Recently a certain satellite company was willing to accept that risk from a certain rocket provider, but there's no fame & glory in taking risk with what is essentially a desktop appliance.

MS is simply "crowdsourcing" QA from enthusiasts to keep costs down. They're going to have to make big financially binding concessions with a customer to get them to gamble.

Looks like every "Nokia" branded Lumia is dropped. Part of it may be carriers dropping support as well. My T-Mobile Lumia 640 is not officially supported for Windows 10 even though it is on this list. If I install an insider build, I lose Wifi calling, band 12, and VoLTE.

They might as well just forget about phones anymore. They've totally ham-fisted it from day one, and all the resets and re-dos just killed an already struggling also ran.

shame, because it was my favorite mobile platform to use. But with my Lumia 735- a phone bought not long ago and still available new- not getting future OS upgrades, screw it. I was thinking of switching back from my iPhone 6S for a bit to try out the Creator's update (VZW makes this really painless to do) but there's obviously no point.

...I though the design was revolutionary (the first company NOT to copy Apple's app icon design) and would usher in a new era of companies exploring better UI's. ...

Ah yes, they avoided the dreaded "grid of icons"... or, in other words, they avoided the most obvious, straightforward, intuitive, easy, and user-friendly way to launch your apps.

That's a questionable achievement.

Funny to me is that, in short order (WP8?), they allowed you to resize your "tiles" down to icon-size, and the few people I knew with Windows Phones quickly resized most of their app tiles so their home screen became... a grid of icons.

Also funny to me is that the "live tiles" were often so slow to update that it rendered their purported advantage (information at a glance without opening apps) almost completely worthless. I had a friend who would constantly check the weather and he ran the weather app each time because that was often faster than waiting for the live tile to update itself.

I have a friend who's a bit older and he had a Windows Phone for a while. He would frequently forget how to access his camera roll because the live tile for his photos was constantly changing appearance to some semi-random picture from his camera roll. Any class on basic UI design will tell you that consistency is paramount, i.e., the visuals you rely on to launch apps shouldn't be changing around all the time. I wonder if anybody at Microsoft realized they were expending enormous effort to completely and deliberately break UI best practices.

Microsoft's new strategy for mobile is to give phones away to all Syrian refugees. They come with a new "FindAFriendlyCountry" app and "HowToFitIn" Cortana map plugin. They've given away millions so far. None in the US however.

...I though the design was revolutionary (the first company NOT to copy Apple's app icon design) and would usher in a new era of companies exploring better UI's. ...

Ah yes, they avoided the dreaded "grid of icons"... or, in other words, they avoided the most obvious, straightforward, intuitive, easy, and user-friendly way to launch your apps.

That's a questionable achievement.

Funny to me is that, in short order (WP8?), they allowed you to resize your "tiles" down to icon-size, and the few people I knew with Windows Phones quickly resized most of their app tiles so their home screen became... a grid of icons.

Also funny to me is that the "live tiles" were often so slow to update that it rendered their purported advantage (information at a glance without opening apps) almost completely worthless. I had a friend who would constantly check the weather and he ran the weather app each time because that was often faster than waiting for the live tile to update itself.

I have a friend who's a bit older and he had a Windows Phone for a while. He would frequently forget how to access his camera roll because the live tile for his photos was constantly changing appearance to some semi-random picture from his camera roll. Any class on basic UI design will tell you that consistency is paramount, i.e., the visuals you rely on to launch apps shouldn't be changing around all the time. I wonder if anybody at Microsoft realized they were expending enormous effort to completely and deliberately break UI best practices.

At the end of the day, their live tiles offered objectively less utility than Android widgets. Far less. Similar concept (info right from the homescreen) but far less versatility. The calendar live tile might show you 1-3 appointments in your immediate future, but my Google Calendar agenda widget is a scrolling widget with all my appointments for a couple weeks, where tapping on any entry brings me to the detailed info for that entry. A weather live tile might provide a little bit of weather information on the homescreen, but not the amount of detail, or the number of options, that Weather Timeline's various homescreen widgets can provide.

"We continue to argue that this kind of thing undermines the value of the Insider program."

The thought of sending preview builds of a product to a client and asking them to risk considerable revenue for the sake of advancement sends shivers down my spine. Recently a certain satellite company was willing to accept that risk from a certain rocket provider, but there's no fame & glory in taking risk with what is essentially a desktop appliance.

MS is simply "crowdsourcing" QA from enthusiasts to keep costs down. They're going to have to make big financially binding concessions with a customer to get them to gamble.

In all fairness, anyone who has ever owned a Nexus device knows exactly what this is like.

The Lumia 1520 is 3 years old now. People get pissed when their phone loses support for WP, but only Apple with the iPhone beats that length of support.

Hopefully that puts things in perspective. This is a x86 vs ARM thing. Not Android (or Linux) vs Windows.Apple can do what it does because of full control of the hardware and limited amount of devices.But, in general, ARM chip vendors don't have the will to support their own hardware after it's in production.

I don't even think it's that. Why should a new build of win10 not work with any phone that already runs it? Why would it break compatibility when everyone touts windows stable abi?

Google dropping devices is just because of arbitrary dates. Microsoft doing it to me just means they gave up. And since wm10 now relies on build updates to fix core apps like edge, means they basically are fully dropped vs Android still getting app updates.

Aside from Nokia making cheap Android phones I really am rather meh at all the selection for phones today.

Back in the day, I bought a M$FT Zune HD. I loved it. But, given the way M$FT cut off support for the Zune, I shall never again be willing to trust them. I initially wanted a Windows Phone, but the Zune experience made that a non-starter.

I received the 15063.138 update for my Icon (Lumina 929) on the slow-ring yesterday. Which is the same as on all my PC's and tablet at this time (none in the Insiders Program).

Unfortunately, the Icon is no longer on the supported list. If MS would ever release a new phone I might upgrade.

I wonder if MS is holding back on hardware until they get the code to 64-bit? Releasing a top-of-the-line phone right now running a 32-bit OS likely will not be looked upon very favorably since it will be limited to 4 MB.

The Lumia 1520 is 3 years old now. People get pissed when their phone loses support for WP, but only Apple with the iPhone beats that length of support.

Hopefully that puts things in perspective. This is a x86 vs ARM thing. Not Android (or Linux) vs Windows.Apple can do what it does because of full control of the hardware and limited amount of devices.But, in general, ARM chip vendors don't have the will to support their own hardware after it's in production.

I don't even think it's that. Why should a new build of win10 not work with any phone that already runs it? Why would it break compatibility when everyone touts windows stable abi?

Google dropping devices is just because of arbitrary dates. Microsoft doing it to me just means they gave up. And since wm10 now relies on build updates to fix core apps like edge, means they basically are fully dropped vs Android still getting app updates.

Aside from Nokia making cheap Android phones I really am rather meh at all the selection for phones today.

I think a lot of it was driver compatibility. But the nexus 6 could have at least gotten the 7.1.2 update, as could have the nexus 9 hardware wise.

...I though the design was revolutionary (the first company NOT to copy Apple's app icon design) and would usher in a new era of companies exploring better UI's. ...

Ah yes, they avoided the dreaded "grid of icons"... or, in other words, they avoided the most obvious, straightforward, intuitive, easy, and user-friendly way to launch your apps.

That's a questionable achievement.

Funny to me is that, in short order (WP8?), they allowed you to resize your "tiles" down to icon-size, and the few people I knew with Windows Phones quickly resized most of their app tiles so their home screen became... a grid of icons.

Also funny to me is that the "live tiles" were often so slow to update that it rendered their purported advantage (information at a glance without opening apps) almost completely worthless. I had a friend who would constantly check the weather and he ran the weather app each time because that was often faster than waiting for the live tile to update itself.

I have a friend who's a bit older and he had a Windows Phone for a while. He would frequently forget how to access his camera roll because the live tile for his photos was constantly changing appearance to some semi-random picture from his camera roll. Any class on basic UI design will tell you that consistency is paramount, i.e., the visuals you rely on to launch apps shouldn't be changing around all the time. I wonder if anybody at Microsoft realized they were expending enormous effort to completely and deliberately break UI best practices.

Also their new browser adopted the Metro UI and tanked in usage. If they'd just give up on that UI and try something more conventional, they'd have a better chance of success.

I'd be more upset, but it's my work phone and it already does everything I need it to and more. I can live without the update and still love the Windows phone UI/UX for everything work-related I do on my phone. I'd love to get another Windows phone to replace it eventually. It meshes so well with my Surface that I really don't want to go back to using an Android for work. And I just dislike the UI/UX for iOS so much that I'll never use an iPhone for work.

- They started taking away standard apps and putting them in other menu's. The "data usage" app suddenly got put in the settings menu. Now instead of one tap to get my data usage, it required three taps and a swipe.

You could've just pinned it to the Start screen to get one-tap access. Works for most for the contents of the Settings menu.

Also their new browser adopted the Metro UI and tanked in usage. If they'd just give up on that UI and try something more conventional, they'd have a better chance of success.

Edge has had the same UI since it's debut yet it's actually been declining in usage. This indicates that the decline in usage is not due to people disliking the UI, but instead due to Chrome's increasing dominance of the browser market, aided in part by its seamless syncing across every major OS (something neither Safari nor Edge nor IE can do). I think you'd be seeing the exact same numbers whether Edge used the Metro look or the old Aero aesthetic.

...I though the design was revolutionary (the first company NOT to copy Apple's app icon design) and would usher in a new era of companies exploring better UI's. ...

Ah yes, they avoided the dreaded "grid of icons"... or, in other words, they avoided the most obvious, straightforward, intuitive, easy, and user-friendly way to launch your apps.

That's a questionable achievement.

Funny to me is that, in short order (WP8?), they allowed you to resize your "tiles" down to icon-size, and the few people I knew with Windows Phones quickly resized most of their app tiles so their home screen became... a grid of icons.

Also funny to me is that the "live tiles" were often so slow to update that it rendered their purported advantage (information at a glance without opening apps) almost completely worthless. I had a friend who would constantly check the weather and he ran the weather app each time because that was often faster than waiting for the live tile to update itself.

I have a friend who's a bit older and he had a Windows Phone for a while. He would frequently forget how to access his camera roll because the live tile for his photos was constantly changing appearance to some semi-random picture from his camera roll. Any class on basic UI design will tell you that consistency is paramount, i.e., the visuals you rely on to launch apps shouldn't be changing around all the time. I wonder if anybody at Microsoft realized they were expending enormous effort to completely and deliberately break UI best practices.

At the end of the day, their live tiles offered objectively less utility than Android widgets. Far less. Similar concept (info right from the homescreen) but far less versatility. The calendar live tile might show you 1-3 appointments in your immediate future, but my Google Calendar agenda widget is a scrolling widget with all my appointments for a couple weeks, where tapping on any entry brings me to the detailed info for that entry. A weather live tile might provide a little bit of weather information on the homescreen, but not the amount of detail, or the number of options, that Weather Timeline's various homescreen widgets can provide.

For me, the problem with live tiles is the constantly changing face on small icons. It's bad enough on a big desktop screen, it's a huge UI mistake on small phone screens.

I rely on text and icon position to remember which icons are linked to what apps but it takes time to build that visual memory. Having a different picture occupy the same icon space, like with the camera roll app, is incredibly confusing. Large widget-sized live tiles aren't a problem though.

I still resent Microsoft for killing w10 update for Nokia 635. I figured it's a nice cheap phone for m y parents to work smoothly. And because they promised windows 10 update at the time, i figured this is it.

Well, a few years later it's still stuck at w8.1. No better than plethora of cheap android phones.

I have a Lumia 635 with Win10. It's one of the standard 635s with 1/2GB of RAM. It's not officially supported (actually, since I'm on Metro PCS/T-Mobile, it isn't even supported on 8.1 beyond Cyan) - and for good reason. MS did initially support the 1GB RAM version that was nearly unobtainium.

The good reason? 512K isn't enough RAM for Win10 to do everything. So for consumer use it makes sense not to support it. It does work, though, if you're not into videos and a lot of multitasking - if you are, stay with 8.1. It also needs to be rebooted at least once a week to clean things up and restore correct operation; not a good thing for ordinary users, either.

I got it by joining the Insider program. That got me, first, update to the final release of 8.1 - I should have stopped there. Then it got Win10 1511. At which point, on release preview, all updates stopped. So it's abandonware but works. Do you want any more information about why a 1/2GB 635 never got 10? Do you really need it?

My advice, since most of the carriers never updated 635s to 8.1 Denim, is to join Insider to get that last 8.1 update, then drop out of Insider so you stay there. That gets you to the best compromise OS for that hardware, which in my case is old enough that I'm actively looking at new phones - Android - anyway.